Tag Archives: humour

I am writing this on the 30th of March, the day after that on which the UK was scheduled to leave the EU, but did not. This day, Saturday, is in the last weekend of March. Early on Sunday morning, we shift from Greenwich Mean Time to British Summer Time, by advancing our clocks by one hour.

In late 1994, while we were on holiday in California, we decided to drive over to the State of Arizona to see Lake Havasu City. After London Bridge was dismantled in 1968, its stones were carefully labelled and sent to Lake Havasu City, where it was reconstructed. By 1971, the bridge had been re-built in a picturesque lakeside position where it has become one of Arizona’s major tourist attractions.

After settling into a motel, we wandered over to a restaurant. For the duration of our evening meal we were the only diners. I ordered ‘New York Steak’, which turned out to be strips of beefsteak. Soon after taking our order, the waitress returned and asked: “D’ya want it with or without O Juice?”

I had never heard of eating steak with orange juice, so I said:

“Excuse me, what did you say?”

She replied, slightly impatiently:

“O juice, you know kinda gravy.”

What sounded like ‘O Juice’ was the waitresses attempt to pronounce the French culinary term ‘au jus‘.

After eating our meal, it was only eight o’clock. We asked the waitress where were all of the other diners and why was she clearing all the tables and stacking the chairs, getting ready to close the eatery.

“It’s getting late you know”

“But it’s only eight,” we retorted.

“Nope, it’s nine,” she informed us.

We had not realised that by crossing from California to Arizona, we had moved into a time zone one hour ahead of California.

While travelling through Gujarat in western India, I have seen many camels (? dromedaries) working as beasts of burden. They are well suited to the arid semi desert climate of Gujarat. The camels remind me of airline jokes I learnt in my childhood. Each joke gives another meaning to an airline’s name or acronym.

BEA was British European Airways. The joke version was Big Empty Aeroplanes;

TAP, Portuguese Airlines became Take Another Plane;

The Greek company Olympic became Only Like Your Money Pay In Cash;

EL AL, the airline of Israel, became Every Landing Always Late.

And this brings me to humped beasts of burden.

BOAC, which was British Overseas Airways Corporation, became Better On A Camel.

Postscript

When the petroleum company ESSO first became established in India, workers in Indian companies worked half day on Saturdays. Esso workers got a whole day off on Saturdays. So, ESSO became known as Ever Saturday Sunday Off.